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Great, Fun & Playable Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: April 19, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game was a shock to me. I got it for free from a friend who had never played it and didn't want it because, he said, "it looks lame." It's not lame; it's actually pretty great.

The whole premise of the game is the standard fantasy fare. You need to save a small town from being taken over by an evil wizard who can, you later find out, turn into a dragon. (Yeah, I guess it does sound a little lame.) You fight your way through a ton of dungeons, you upgrade your weapons and armor as you would in any other Diablo-type game, and you have to solve puzzles in a very Zelda-like way.

What makes the game so fun is that it'll take you a very short time to get used to the interface, so you feel like an expert the whole time. That's not to say it's dumbed down or oversimplified: it's just not overly complex like some fantasy games tend to be. The story is compelling and the music is really great: seriously, give the woman by the tree some gold so she'll sing the Darkstone song and it'll be in your head for a month.

Overall, if you like this sort of game and don't feel like you need to be over-powered by graphics and gore, this is a great choice.

Darkstone is a breath of fresh air.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: December 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Well , to say that 'Nightstone' is graphically subpar to today's Act/Rpg's
would be a completely (unfair and also a idiotic) comparison.
What you have here is a game that was created during the 'Changing of the
gaurd' between Win98 and XP - high tech graphic engines did not exist as of this time and (3D graphics) were still in it's infantcy.
Ok, with that aside, i find 'Nightstone' to be a very enjoyable title.I was suprised to see that for an old title, the developers got the whole
control scheme and camera control down to a science, very easy to pick up
and play without tedium and the option to play (2 character's) at once and
switch between them with ease is something i don't see in even most of
Today's Multi-Million dollar titles. Game developers:TAKE NOTE; Want to
create a title that works, buy a copy of this game, study the animations,
the control scheme and use today's graphic resources and then maybe,just
maybe fans of the genre will get something worth $50.
The story is only slightly original, but for what it's worth, it works
and it does seem to rival most the 'Dribble' thrown in most modern RPG's
of this type. 5 Stars for getting right (back then); what most should have already perfected by now.
-holyknight8

Great game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I haven't played this game since it first came out, but I remember it well. I regret ever losing this game I had so much fun playing it. Easy to get used too, not a very complicated inventory system. In the middle of the village the story takes place in is a man and woman. If you give them gold they play the theme song for the game, after you beat the game the music video for this song is unlocked. Overall a good game. Would recomend to anyone. Keep in mind yeah the graphics aren't exactly Halo2 or Half Life 2, it came out in 2001. But if you want a cheap RPG that is easy to get used too and isn't loaded done with cut scenes go with this one.

Great!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 28, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I love this game, and I cannot recommend it enough. This is a wonderful little hack and slash rpg. The graphics aren't that great so if you only like the best graphics then you will not want to get this game.

Darkstone for PC by gathering of Developers

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: December 01, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Darkstone is an excellent game. I've had it for about four months, and it has got increasingly difficult, but still a great game. I have all three of the patches for Darkstone, and it makes the game harder but more interesting. the game is based on gathering the seven crystals from their various keepers by helping the keepers. Then you assemble the Time Orb and defeat draak, a necromancer who has gained the ability to turn into a dragon. My friend has it too, and he's probably better at it but rushes into things too much. For example, he had six of the seven crystals, then he went and sold three items which would have made him extremely powerful. He realized his mistake and has started a new game, which means I've got more crystals than him. Yay! Great game.

You get what you pay for

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 5
Date: September 30, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game was originally released for 10 dollars. Almost everything about it is pulled straight from Diablo and is not quite as good. Though this game has a few things about it that are interesting, and can be enjoyable to some people, I would just skip this game and go for Diablo 2.

A pretty good game, clearly worth this price.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: July 18, 2003
Author: Amazon User

It has some flaws, you will have to run around a bit between play areas, but it plays well enough. The price is right, and it is worth the time you will spend on it. The learning curve is small, and there are music sound tracks buried deep in the CD if you look for them (a neat extra). It has been around a couple of years and there is nothing new (though you do have a "partner" you can exploint during battle), but it is a good change of sceenary. I liked it enough to want to finish it; I think you will too.

A derivative of Diablo, with some original touches

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: May 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

System on which this was tried out: Pentium III 733 MHz, nVidia TNT 2 Pro, 128 MB RAM, Win98, with a monitor with 1024 x 768 resolution. Hardware acceleration is required.

In this review, I'll only consider Darkstone from the viewpoint of single-player. Darkstone is a fantasy action/adventure game, but along the lines of Diablo rather than Black Isle's AD&D-style Baldur's Gate. I consider Darkstone to be a Diablo derivative; Darkstone's release was after that of the original Diablo but long before that of Diablo II, so it has a different spin than that of Diablo II.

Graphics are much more cartoonlike than those of Diablo, but as a tradeoff the different kinds of monsters really *are* different, instead of just being a few basic types varying only by colour. Some of the monster types: skeletons with varying types of weapons and armour; giant insects (wasps, bees with electrical attacks); bats; rats; snakes; lizardmen; nosferatu/vampires; ratmen (cute, actually) of varying strengths and armament. Very occasionally a dungeon chamber will be full of vicious little chickens. :)

Quests come in two flavors, and each game has a different, random quest mix.
1) A minor quest consists of a townsperson walking up to the player and naming the item to be located (in an appropriate spiel). The quest-assigner exchanges a lump sum in gold for the item.
2) A major quest, on the other hand, has a plot and even a puzzle to solve, and ends with the award of one of the 7 crystals to the player.

Darkstone's graphics have less atmosphere than those of Diablo, but there are a greater variety of enemies and settings, and the player has more freedom to enter higher-level dungeons - of course, after that, it's the player's own fault if he/she is creamed for tackling high-level enemies before the character can cope with them. (On the flip side, the save mechanism allows multiple save files, unlike Diablo, and there's no penalty for dying, something Diablo II adjusted.)

Similar concepts to Diablo: health and mana potions and fountains; magic door spells that gate back to town; monsters can't follow you into town or between levels, and don't respawn once you've cleaned out an area (something Diablo II adjusted); ability to range the countryside rather than just having a dungeon crawl (something Diablo II also picked up); random quest mix (something Diablo II dropped, unfortunately), where the major quests have more eye candy and more mental challenges than Diablo's, at least on the first visit; characters have active and passive skills, something Diablo II also picked up; randomized dungeons, except for the set-piece areas specific to major quests.

Extra concepts: The character must eat and rest, but can pay for lessons in skills as well as practicing on the town training ground. While town is a safe zone, the player can pickpocket town characters - including stealing eggs from a chicken. Items and attacks have a more complex, Diablo II-ish flavor, including poison spells and cursed artifacts - things that can be fixed, for a price. The blacksmith can upgrade as well as repair, buy, and sell weapons. The town usurer is a good idea. Incidentally, as in Diablo II, the player may have a sidekick, but unlike D2, the player can fully control either player character at will.

As for the dungeons themselves, they're more elaborate than those of Diablo, or than several of those in Diablo II - not graphically, but in terms of content: pressure plates to open some doors, teleport pads, doors that open only when switches are thrown in specific sequences. Outside individual dungeons, the map can be used to direct the player character to a specific location.

Some poor play balance aspects: the player will amass HUGE amounts of money, and the usurer doesn't even charge a fee; AIs can't open doors, and hold still once a door closes between you and them, which leaves them at the mercy of a ranged attack.

Annoyances: voice acting ranges from OK to rotten; player can replay *everything* said by any NPC more than 'good morning', but can't sift out just the quests left open; those must be tracked on the player's own time. Consequently, for a game that's been underway for a while, the playback feature on NPC conversation isn't useful.

D&D Stlyle Games

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 24
Date: February 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The number one thing that attracts me to an RPG is if it has one of four logos.
#1 Forgotten Realms
#2 TSR
#3 SSI
#4 Wizards of the Coast
I am a hard core D&Der from the 70's and wont recommend any RPG title that does not have one of these logos as without it, it means that is not officially D&D nor does it have the D&D rule system in place. I have found that any game that does not have these logos are wimpy at best.

great game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 08, 2002
Author: Amazon User

If you like Diablo 1..... this is exactly the same game... only improved 300% percent. If not for Blizzards Bnet and all the multiplayer options I would say that this game is also better than Diablo2

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